Here are ten photographs found quite by chance among a set of 300 negatives discovered on a bottom shelf at a flea market.
Enjoy these. This is a Lancaster Bomber shown here at a time she had flown 125 missions.
Before retiring this plane would go on to complete 137 missions.
06/10/2010
From Nathan Howland (via Flickr):
She was built as part of a batch of 100 Manchesters (two engine version of same plane) ordered from Metropolitan Vickers in 1939 but then rebuilt as a Lancaster B I. Issued to 83rd squadron as OL-Q. Then to 467th squadron as PO-S this aircraft completed 137 operational sorties.
So in your pictures she was still very much in service and would not have been on 'exhibition flights' anywhere. Originally "Q-Queenie" of No. 83 Squadron, R5868 logged 79 sorties (the first against Wilhelmshaven on 8th/9th July 1942, the 79th against Milan on 12th/13th August 1943) before joining No. 467 Squadron in November 1943, and becoming "S-Sugar". It resumed operations on 26th/27th November with a sortie against Berlin, and logged its 100th operation on 11th/12th May 1944, when the target was Bourg Leopold in Belgium. That means when she was shot by your camera man it must have been very late summer early fall to have the extra missions painted.
Its last operational sortie - to Flensburg on 23rd April 1945-was disappointingly anticlimactic: owing to 10/10 cloud cover no bombs were dropped. After the war "S-Sugar" was selected by the Air Ministry for preservation. It was transferred to RAF Wroughton where it was from of its career from 1947 to 1958 in moth-balls. It was the gate guard at RAF Scampton from 1958 until 1970 which almost ruined her!
It was then transferred to RAF Bicester where she was lovingly restored between 1970 and 1972. On March 20th 1972 the aircraft was placed on display at the RAF Museum Hendon as PO-S, where it remains to the present day.
mickb6265 says:
hi,this aircraft is s-sugar which still exists and is in raf hendon museum,london.even the visible nose art is still on her.check my stream,click on the tags,put in "lancaster" and a lot of shots of her today will come up 
(Click on the above sample to take you to the mickb6265 Flickr site and some fine museum pictures.)
Steve Birdsall says: I found a reference to this in
Roger Freeman's Mighty Eighth War Diary:
As part of an exercise to make 8AF personnel appreciate the RAF Bomber Command's contribution to their joint campaign, veteran Lancaster S for Sugar visited nearly every base during February. On the 21st it was at North Pickenham [a B-24 Liberator base] where personnel were allowed aboard. The 125 mission scoreboard also caused great interest.
There's an official photograph of this same Lancaster and its crew with the 381st Bomb Group at Ridgewell, Essex.
(on the reverse) The photo is dated February 18, 1945 and the caption states that the crew and plane are on a "Lecture Tour".
125 Mission Lancaster buzzes field with 2 left props feathered 01
125 Mission Lancaster buzzes field with 2 left props feathered 01
125 Mission Lancaster buzzes field with 2 left props feathered 02
125 Mission Lancaster buzzes field with 2 left props feathered 03
125 Mission Lancaster buzzes field with 2 left props feathered 04
Here is a nice link to a page about the Lancaster with LOTS of pictures www.mikekemble.com/ww2/lanc.html
This set of six photographs of this Short Stirling, a very rare aircraft indeed, is part of a book of negatives found at a flea market in 2008.
Included are
a P-61 Black Widow "Wabash Cannonball II,
a 125 mission Lancaster "S for Sugar",
the B-17 “Ack Ack Annie”,
and a bazooka equipped Piper Cub.
Look at these and be amazed.
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